


I say it looks like sunshine

by gsparkle



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bisexual Scott Lang, M/M, Moving On, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gsparkle/pseuds/gsparkle
Summary: See, here’s the thing: Scott Lang, barely functional adult, does not match up with Steve Rogers, literal superhero and protector of the American way. He justdoesn’t.





	I say it looks like sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I don't know. I don't even ship this, but I discovered that there wasn't much work for these two and my goblin brain was like, _hmm better write it, then._
> 
> title from Natalie Cole's "Opposites Attract." Thanks forever to santiagoinbflat for putting up with me <3
> 
>  **UPDATE:** it's fucking incredible that people are affected by the things I write and want to actually, like, _illustrate_ them???? Check out [this SUPER AWESOME AND COOL watercolor painting by JoJo Seames](http://jojoseames.tumblr.com/post/174157723028) inspired by this story :)

_Thinks for thanking of me._

There’s not much else to think about in prison other than your mistakes; not much else Scott’s willing to think about, in any case. If he thinks about Hope’s sharp edges, or Maggie smiling across the dinner table, or _Cassie Cassie Cassie_ and everything else he’s going to miss, he’ll crack wide open and get shoved into a straight jacket like the Maximoff kid. Carefully, cautiously, he puts his favorite people into the basement of his mind, safe from being forgotten, safe from his smudgy fingerprints blurring their surface as he turns them over and over in the hands of his memory.

It’s safer to think about things like how fucking stupid he is; there, an inexhaustible source of material for him to ruminate over. Who thinks it’s a good idea to tag along with a bunch of _literal Avengers_? Scott Edward Harris Lang, that’s who. Who tells the Black Widow he doesn’t want to hurt her, _as if he ever fucking could_? Uh, yeah, that would be Scott Lang. Who meets _Captain fucking America,_ holds his hand for one million seconds too long, and then says, like a moron, _thinks for thanking of me_? Hmm, wait… that sounds just like Scott!

 _Jesus Christ,_ says the voice in his head that sounds a lot like Hope, exasperated and not all that fond. _This is embarrassing._ See, the thing is that Scott falls for people who are far too good for him, women who are too patient and men who are too kind by half. He knows he’s the worst, knows that he’s never going to be the man he should be, but that doesn’t stop him from meeting Steve Rogers and immediately getting hit upside the head with a crush the size of the Golden Gate Bridge. Truly, he doesn’t know how the rest of them do it, laughing and slapping backs and poking fun like the target of their teasing isn’t _Captain America_ , isn’t enormous and golden and altogether perfect.

“You hear that, Lang?” Wilson calls from the next cell over. Unlike Scott, who’s a jerk, Wilson and Barton have been talking to Wanda, taking turns keeping her company, keeping her distracted from the shock collar and the straitjacket and how royally fucked up everything is. They’re good people, Sam and Clint, _nice_ people, not calloused convicted felons like Scott. He’s the only one who deserves to be here, really.

“Hear what?” Scott calls back, but then-- _whump whump whump_ , a group of large and heavy somethings thrown against the other side of his cell wall, the faint panicky beeps of a door meant to be secured. “What _is_ that?”

The funny thing about Wilson is that you can always hear the smirk in his voice, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. “That, my friend, is our escape.”

He doesn’t have to say more: even as Scott looks around in anticipation, a pair of dark shapes separate from the shadows of the entrance to their little cell block. The smaller one goes directly to Wanda’s cell door and sets to work disabling the lock, revealing herself to be the Black Widow, lips pressed in an angry line. The larger shape materializes slowly from the darkness, Steve emerging headfirst as if surfacing from the depths.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says to the room at large, but his blazing eyes bely the casual slant of his voice. “Let’s get you home to your daughter,” he says kindly to Scott as he opens his cell door. “I’m sure she misses you.”

“Thinks,” says Scott, certified idiot. “ _Thanks._ I’d, uh. I’d do it again, because _you_ ”-- _oh my god, stop finger gunning, stop stop stop--_ “are legendary!” There’s a pause where Steve smiles, bemused and twinkly-eyed, and Natasha, just over Steve’s shoulder, shakes her head and rolls her eyes in a way that makes Scott pretty sure she and Hope would get along just _great._ “Anyway! Which way is the plane?” Steve points, Natasha snorts, and Scott goes before he can make an even bigger idiot of himself.

\-----

Being an ex-con was never _great_ , exactly, but it’s worse now that he’s fucked up on an international scale. As it turns out, saying “I was just helping Captain America!” doesn’t really work when Captain America himself is a fugitive and isn’t there to back you up. Scott shifts his story to “At least I came back, _unlike Captain America_ ,” and only feels a little bad. 

Hank doesn’t really care one way or another, though Scott’s new ankle monitor seems to chafe him more than it does Scott himself. “Well, how are you supposed to break into Stark labs now?” he wants to know, as if that was ever going to be a good idea.

Hope shows up with a brand new _you’re too dumb to breathe_ side-eyed glare; he points this out and she says, “I had plenty of time to practice it while you were in prison, _again_ ,” stinging as her precious bullet ants.

“That means she missed you,” Hank says with wink, but Scott knows better than to say that he missed her, too. He might be an idiot, but he’s not foolish enough to think Hope actively waited for him, an assumption confirmed when she announces she has a date and throws him one last withering look before leaving. “She’ll get over it,” Hank promises, but Scott doesn’t care, doesn’t blame her at all.

Maggie and Paxton are brittle and frosty, but Cassie flings herself into his arms and that’s all Scott has ever wanted. “Daddy!” she shrieks, heavier in his arms than he remembers.

Scott holds her extra close, memorizing the way she smells like crayons and sunshine and fresh laundry. “Hi, peanut,” he says, only a little teary and choked up. He’s a fuck up and he doesn’t know when he’ll get to see her again and he doesn’t deserve to, really.

“I saw you on TV,” she whispers, her brown eyes round. “You were _giant._ ” Her awed smiles lights her whole face up. “It was _awesome,_ and at school we play pretend and I always get to be you!”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Scott says, horrified. “Don’t be me,” _please please don’t turn out like me._ “Next time, be the Black Widow, she’s really one of the good guys. Girls? People.”

Cassie pouts. “Mom says guns are bad,” she points out. “And you’re a good guy, too, Daddy, right?”

“Of course your dad is a good guy,” Paxton assures Cassie, even as his glare says otherwise. “But he’s got to go now, so give him a big hug goodbye.” He passes Scott a folded piece of paper over Cassie’s head and mouths, _Don’t come back until you have a job._

Paxton sucks, but he’s an okay guy: the paper is a job listing at a bakery that helps ex-cons get back on their feet. He’s already spoken to the manager and lined up an interview; all Scott needs to do is show up clean, sober, and passably intelligent.

He does, and he gets the job, and it gets easier, slowly. Bakeries open with the sun, so Scott rises early, takes the frustrations of his life out on the forgiving dough. He smells like bread all the time now, Hope points out with a half-cocked smile, because Hank is letting Scott stay in one of his extra bedrooms and she’s always over, tinkering with him in the basement. Scott stays away, refuses to let himself get sucked into trouble again. He goes to work and takes a selection of leftover muffins when he drops off his child support checks and does not ever pick up any of the hints Hank leaves lying around the house like landmines.

A month goes by, two, three. Scott scrapes up enough money to buy a shitty purple PT Cruiser that Cassie declares “super ugly” before naming it Stinger. Maggie stops frowning when he pulls up in front of her house, and Paxton almost seems to mean it when he asks Scott to stay for dinner. Hope tells Hank, “Stop trying to drag Scott back to the dark side,” and maybe, possibly, smiles.

Then: a muggy Saturday morning and the bell over the bakery door rings. “Excuse me, ma’am,” says the new customer, holding the door open for Mrs. Zavaleta to leave with her weekly order of donuts. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, wears a baseball cap low on his face, and Scott’s half-sure they’re about to be held up at gunpoint. It would be just his luck.

“Welcome to Beetle Bakery!” says Scott automatically; he hasn’t been named employee of the month for nothing. He keeps an eye on the door even as he asks, “What can I get for you today?”

“Lang,” says the stranger; but he’s not a stranger, he’s Steve Rogers, just as big and golden even with the full beard shading the lower half of his face. He looks like trouble. He looks _good_.

“Oh,” says Scott, at a loss. It’s not right for someone to be that handsome, to pack so much personality into such a little smile. “Are--” he leans over the counter and whispers, “Are you in trouble again?”

It’s a stupid question for about a million reasons. For one, Steve Rogers can definitely take care of himself. For two, _if_ Steve Rogers needs help, an ex-con driving a fucking PT Cruiser isn’t going to be his top choice. And three, which should have been number one, he’s finally, _finally,_ gotten his shit together and shouldn’t be ready to throw it out a window. He remembers of the invitation Cassie proudly handed him to her birthday party yesterday because “this time, Daddy, Mommy says it’s okay if you wanna come,” and thinks, _you dumbass piece of shit._

Steve, blessedly unaware of Scott’s internal monologue, shakes his head. “I’m fine,” he says, sheepish and reassuring in equal measures. “Just, ah, making the rounds, checking to make sure everyone’s okay.”

“Oh,” Scott says again. “Well. Good.” And it _is_ good that Steve’s okay, that they’re all okay, but he’s still mad at himself for being prepared to vault right over this counter just because the most attractive man on the face of the earth shows up at his place of work. “ _Good._ Because--because I can’t help you anymore! I know you’re, like, _Captain America_ and _a perfect human being_ and _voted People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive,_ but I’m responsible now, okay?”

He feels belatedly bad about using so many air quotes, but Steve laughs and looks down, his teeth a quick flash of white. “Glad to know you’ve been reading up on me,” he says with a shine in his eyes as he pulls out his billfold. “And no, I’m not here to ask for help again. I’m just here--”

“Aw, man, c’mon,” protests Scott. Now he feels _really_ bad. “I knew what I was getting into, you don’t--I don’t need you to _repay_ me.”

Steve pauses, gives Scott that grin where he looks up through his eyelashes and makes all the air in the room disappear like smoke. “I’m just here,” he repeats, “For a blueberry bagel knot. I heard they were the best in the Bay Area.”

“Oh,” says Scott for a third time in what has become the most embarrassing morning of his life. “Oh yeah. Right! They’re good.” He seizes the opportunity to duck out of sight to grab, bag the bagel, and shape the fuck up. “$1.75, sir.”

“No need to call me sir,” Steve reminds him. “Steve is fine.” His thumb brushes Scott’s as he hands over the money and a current of heat ricochets up his arm. “Thanks, Lang,” Steve says, apparently unaffected. He smiles brightly at the door and lifts the pastry bag in a farewell gesture. “I’ll see you around.”

\-----

It feels safe to assume that Captain America has better things to do than lurk around the Bay Area and drop in on Scott periodically. _What do superheroes do when they’re not working?_ he googles, but all the answers are about Tony Stark. “When I wasn’t saving people, I was working in my lab,” Hanks shares over breakfast. “How else would I have improved my technology? Speaking of which, I’ve made some upgrades for--”

“ _Hank,_ ” Hope and Scott say in unison. “Why don’t you work on _my_ suit instead,” Hope argues, mouthing _you’re welcome_ as she drags Hank out of the kitchen and down to the basement, bickering the whole way.

Working at a bakery isn’t the most mentally stimulating job Scott’s ever had, so he folds croissants and fills cupcake liners and provides his own answers. _Today, Captain America is talking to the eighth graders at Ginsberg Middle about civic responsibility,_ he hypothesizes, cutting heart shaped cookies and slathering them with pink frosting. _Today, Steve Rogers spends the day holding babies at the hospital._ The scenarios grow and become more elaborate; he’s bored, okay, and this passes the time.

 _Today,_ Scott tells himself as he begins icing a birthday cake, _Today Steve Rogers is in Sacramento, collecting signatures to help eliminate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s hard, of course, because nobody ever wants to stop and listen, but he’s patient and kind and compassionate, and by the end of the day he’s convinced a hundred people to donate!_ It’s an incredible accomplishment, in Scott’s mind, anyway, which is why he stops shorts when his shift ends and he finds Steve Rogers in the flesh, leaning against Stinger’s dented hood.

“Captain, uh, sir, uh, Steve!” says Scott, and Steve grins.

“Lang,” he says, inclining his head. “Walk with me?” It’s another check-up, apparently, only a month after the first. “Barton’s relocated his family to Sante Fe,” he shares. “Sam’s backpacking in Thailand, and Natasha and Maria swept Wanda off to the Caribbean, location classified.”

“Good for them,” Scott says, though he thinks It would be nice if someone would sweep _him_ off on vacation. He’d like to go backpacking and have fun instead of wake up at the ass-crack of dawn every day; but then, Sam’s ex-military with a real job, and Wanda has friends with real connections. Scott’s nobody. “And, uh. Your friend? Barnes?”

They’ve walked a lap around the block, back at his embarrassment of a car. “Wakanda,” says Steve, voice short, eyes distant. “See you around, Lang.”

And he does, again and again, a month and then weeks and then days after each other, at the grocery store and on runs and at the art show Luis strongarms Scott into attending. “Are you stalking me, man?” he asks then, because it’s getting a little ridiculous.

“Maybe I just like art,” Steve shrugs with that shine in his eye, wandering away to examine some other painting.

“I think that dude likes you,” says Luis, having just reached the end of a very long explanation of the development of the modernist movement. “He’s _jacked._ You should ask him out.”

“Do you know who that is?” Scott hisses. “That is _Captain America_ , man! No way.”

Luis appraises Steve across the room with the same gimlet eye he just cast over the Frida Kahlo painting they stand in front of, then looks back at Scott, who raises his eyebrows to say, _see what I mean?_ “Dude,” Luis says. “I’m serious: take that man to a wine tasting.”

“Why am I friends with you,” Scott sighs to the universe at large, and Luis, who is an asshole, only grins.

See, here’s the thing: Scott Lang, barely functional adult, does not match up with Steve Rogers, literal superhero and protector of the American way. He just _doesn’t._ And so he’ll take these increasingly-longer walks around blocks and parks and art museums for what they are: tiny errors in the universal order that let him brush up against perfection he was never supposed to know. He’ll collect the little things about Steve Rogers, that half-sad smile and the way he clutches his chest when he laughs, and keep them in the basement of his mind where they won’t fade away.

“So here’s what I don’t get,” Scott says when Steve slides onto the park bench next to him. Today, Maggie’s let him bring Cassie to the park, where she’s managed to terrorize the other kids on the playground into playing “Young Avengers” with her. “As far as I can tell, you’ve been kicking around the Bay Area for, like, two months now.” He turns and leans one arm along the back of the bench, fingers just millimeters from Steve’s wide shoulder. “So, if you’re here, who’s checking on the rest of the gang?”

Scott’s learned a lot about Steve over these past few months: the sketch book he keeps in his jacket, the way he shifts his feet when he doesn’t know what to say. “They’re,” he starts, then stops, looking across more than the park green. “They’re fine,” he says quietly. “Clint’s resettling his family; Sam’s hard to pin down most days, and Natasha and Maria can protect Wanda better than I ever could.” His big hands fold and unfold with surprising grace. “I know when I’m not needed. I don’t like to be a burden.”

“Do you,” Scott begins, finding it easier to keep his gaze fixed on the curl of Steve’s fingers than on the too-knowing blue of his eyes. “Do you think _I_ need you?” It’s hard to work out if what he’s feeling is offense, pleasure, or some fizzy combination of the two.

“No!” Steve insists, one of those big hands falling to Scott’s knee with a warmth that blooms like summer sun. “No, that’s not--I _like_ it here,” he confesses. “And I feel like a traitor for not going back to Brooklyn, but it’s just--it’s just so _warm_ here.” He shoots Scott a smile that’s a different kind of warm, bashful and quiet; or maybe, Scott thinks, that’s exactly what he means. “And I figured.” Steve hesitates. “And I figured, if I’m not _needed_ anywhere, you know, why not stick around somewhere--somewhere I have a--a connection.”

Cautiously, Scott moves his hand until it’s over the one Steve still has on his knee. “Connections are good,” he agrees, settling his fingers in the valleys between Steve’s. “Stay as long as you’d like.” He smiles, tentative, and under the shade of an ancient cork oak tree, Steve smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> [hit me up here on tumblr!](http://quidnunc-life.tumblr.com/)


End file.
